Presidential Power Couples: Does a Strong First Lady Correlate with a Strong President?

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Spring 5-1-2019

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Recommended Citation Jethwa, Misha, "Presidential Power Couples: Does a Strong First Lady Correlate with a Strong President?" (2019). Honors Scholar Theses. 646. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses/646

Presidential Power Couples: Does a Strong First Lady Correlate with a Strong President?

This thesis explores the extent to which a strong first lady correlates with a strong president, and if she impacts public perceptions of his success. To do this, I have run a cross-tabulation through STATA with comprehensive rankings on presidents and first ladies from C-SPAN and Siena College respectively. Both consist of 10 categories that factor into the overall rankings. I have also compiled brief case studies on statistically significant first ladies in order to discover why some of these women are ranked as such. The correlations between rankings are most prominent at the bottom of the rankings - with low ranked presidents having low ranked first ladies - but less so at the top of the rankings. The most statistically significant category of the first lady rankings was “Background”, with the least significant being “Accomplishments”. I also found that more recent first ladies tend to be ranked higher, possibly due to their ability to be seen as political figures. My qualitative research concludes that despite there being low correlations between strong first ladies and strong presidents in the rankings, the first lady does have a strong behind-the-scenes impact on her husband.

Misha Jethwa Honors Thesis Advisor: Jeffrey W. Ladewig

Introduction

"I hope someday someone will take time to evaluate the true role of wife of a president and to assess the many burdens she has to bear and the contributions she makes.”

- Harry S. Truman1

The office of the president is arguably the highest office in the world. The president is a global leader, a commander-in-chief, a legislator, but also – almost always – a husband. It is often easy to gloss over the fact that the most important person in our government has a personal life, but the first lady is not somebody to be glossed over. With the rise of feminism in the last one hundred years, there has been slightly more focus on the wife of the president, but ultimately

Americans are still relatively unaware of what the office of the first lady entails. It is naïve to think that somebody in such personal proximity to the president would have no impact on his decision making in office, yet this is an assumption that most people consider to be true. There is little talk of the first lady in the election process and even during her tenure despite the fact that - for all we know - she could be backseat driving the administration, and in a number of cases has been doing so.

Even in scholarly research there has been little research on first ladies, the topic having been pushed to the backburner in favor of presidential studies. In a study by Eksterowicz and

Watson (2000), ten American government and ten presidency textbooks were scanned for mentions or references to first ladies. They found an average of 17 mentions of first ladies in

American government textbooks and only 8 in presidency textbooks. Not only are these numbers staggeringly low, but most of them simply mention the first lady as the president’s wife and

1 Means, 1963. 1 move on without any insight into her impact on the administration. (Eksterowicz & Watson,

2000). Watson also looked at biographies written about first ladies and recorded similarly low numbers. While there are a number of books on some of the most recognizable first ladies –

Eleanor Roosevelt, Abigail Adams, Hillary Clinton and the like – most have not received the same attention from scholars, with twelve first ladies only having one biography written about them, and five having nothing at all.

There are a few potential reasons for this lack of research, but none of them hold much weight. Firstly, there are only a small number of cases when it comes to first ladies, so many scholars avoid the topic as it is difficult to do statistical analysis with such small numbers. It can also be hard to find pertinent information on first ladies as the public may not have access to documents such as letters or memos written by them (Watson, 2003). Ultimately, though, these issues are also faced in presidential research, meaning that first ladies must be seen as less valuable to study than presidents even though public opinion polls have shown that when asked if the first lady is important to the success of the president, over 50% of the public said that they

“strongly agree” (Watson, 2000).

The assumption that the first lady is simply an appendage of the president and does not affect his thoughts and actions is one that has been held throughout presidential research, but has little evidence behind it. Erasing someone who could be one of his most pertinent influencers leaves us with gaps between the presidents’ ideas and the actions he ultimately takes. “By ignoring First Ladies,” Lewis Gould (1985) argued, “we have truncated the humanity of presidents and diminished them as men. Our grasp of the presidency is poorer for that action. But we also have, and this is more important, downgraded a group of women who have fulfilled a unique responsibility. It is too simple to say that their role has been symbolic. It has been wisely

2 said that we live by symbols. How we view the First Lady is how we expect women to act, marriages to work, families to grow, and Americans to live. In the most profound sense, the study of First Ladies holds up a mirror to ourselves”. Clearly the first lady is more than just a wife to a powerful man; she holds an important role in our society and this unique role that

Gould mentions is exactly what my research will dive into.

The purpose of this thesis will be to measure the unknown influence that the first lady could have on the perceptions of her husband’s success through both quantitative and qualitative measures. I first examined existing literature on first ladies through psychological, historical, and socio-political lenses, before diving into my own research on the topic. I have compared C-

SPAN rankings of first ladies and presidents in ten categories in order to quantify their relationship and the extent to which the first lady impacts her husband. I used STATA in order to perform a statistical analysis of these rankings and find correlations between presidential and first lady rankings. I then pulled out some of the correlations and relationships that I found the most interesting and conducted brief case studies on certain first lady in order to learn more about why some of these relationships exist, and why some of these women are ranked the way that they are. The specific women I ended up pulling out are on Ellen and Edith Wilson, Letitia and Julia Tyler, Mary Lincoln, Laura Bush, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jane Pierce. Through these case studies, I was hoping to find real evidence – aside from purely numbers – that the First Lady is an important asset to the President and holds an important role in the executive branch of

American government. After conducting my research, I can confirm that her role is a unique position unable to be filled by anybody else in the President’s life, and that without a first lady in such an influential position, we would be poorer for it. After all, our lowest ranked President was also our only unmarried President.

When looking at relevant literature on the subject of first ladies there are a few questions we need to answer. First, we have to look briefly into psychology to discover in what ways a wife may have an impact on her husband’s work and how a marriage affects a high-pressure job like the presidency. We also need to define what the office of the first lady really is. Does she have a formal job description, and if so, what are her formal and informal powers? It also needs to be taken into account that her role has not been stagnant for 250 years but has evolved with society and the rise of feminism.

Spousal Relationships, and the Role of a Wife

In colonial times, women were still somewhat seen as providing figures. “In the 18th century, many women were active in business and professional pursuits”, with many holding jobs and managerial positions in the family business (Demos, 1974). Abigail Adams, for example, managed the family estate while her husband was working, and performed a variety of tasks in his absence. The provider as a solely male job emerged in the early 1800s with the industrial revolution. It was at this point that women were discouraged from participating in the labor force and deprived of the opportunities to move up the ladder. This period of social degradation showed itself in the lack of responsibility given to women as “the wife of a more successful provider” – a president, for example – “ became for all intents and purposes a parasite, with little to do except indulge or pamper herself” (Bernard, 1981). With this heightened distinction between the sexes men were less likely to include their wives in their work lives. In fact, it was seen as a weakness if a married woman were to work. This could easily be the reason that we see highly ranked early first ladies followed by very few first ladies with high scores all the way from the early 1800s to the early 1900s (Bernard, 1981).

At least in the modern-era, though, it has been found that in upper-middle-class marriages, wives do have a significant impact on their husbands’ success. This could explain the increase in highly ranked first ladies in the last one hundred or so years. While generally indirect and unrewarded, wives’ actions can be integral in a husbands’ advancement both socially and professionally (Thompson and Walker, 1989). These efforts can be as early as accommodating their husbands’ desires to relocate for a new career, and go as far as entertaining work associates and even completing administrative tasks for her husband at home (Papanek, 1979). While first ladies may not be directly doing work for the president, this gives us reason to believe that work is at least talked about at home and that these discussions can have impacts on what a husband may do the next day.

It has also been shown that in higher stress jobs, this spillover from work to home is much more common (Moen and Sweet, 2002). Lady Bird Johnson was even quoted critiquing one of Lyndon B. Johnson’s speeches with the utmost precision, telling him that “during the statement you were a little breathless and there was too much looking down and I think it was a little too fast. Not enough change of pace. Dropping voice at the end of sentence. There was a consider-able pickup in drama and interest when the questioning began” (Beschloss, 1997). It is hard to imagine that this was the only time she gave him feedback of this nature, so we can begin to piece together her influence on his speechmaking and the way he came across to his cabinet,

Congress, and the public. Since the mid-20th century, more and more women have been entering the labor force, with the proportion of working married women more than doubling from 25.2% in 1950 to 55.4% in 1978 (Bernard, 1981). With this increase, first ladies now have the social ability to be seen as a working member of the executive branch as opposed to an appendage of the president.

There has been little research done on the interrelationships between presidents and first ladies in particular, but looking at literature on husbands and wives provides a foundation on which to build and expand the argument that there is in fact spillover from work to home in these relationships. What is still unknown is the effect that this spillover has on the marriage, and how much the first lady’s responses actually impact what the president chooses to do.

Legal Precedent

When trying to study first ladies, one of the first things we need to understand is the role she plays in the White House. After all, it is difficult to rank somebody a being good or bad at their job when there is no formal definition of what the job even is. From a purely legal standpoint there are three laws that have some weight over the position of the first lady. First, section 221 of the Postal Revenue and Federal Salary Act of 1967 (PL 90-206) prohibits the

President from appointing members of his own family to the executive branch. This technically excludes the first lady from being an employee of the executive branch. This is further reinforced by the second law regarding her status, the Anti Deficiency Act of 1844 (31 USC 1342) which prohibited all voluntary government service. Since the Postal Revenue Act did not allow her to be employed, and the Anti-Deficiency act did not allow her to volunteer, these two statutes combined essentially rendered the first lady devoid of any formal role in government. This catch-

22 was solved in part by the third piece of legislation: The 1978 White House Personnel

Authorization Act (PL 95-570). Section 105(e) of this act, titled “Assistance and Services for the

President” exempts the first lady from the two aforementioned statutes (Borrelli, 2002).

(e) Assistance and services authorized pursuant to this section to the President are authorized to be provided to the spouse of the president in connection with assistance provided by such spouse to the President in the discharge of the President’s duties and responsibilities. If the President does not have a spouse, such assistance and services may be provided for such purposes to a member of the President’s family whom the President designates. (PL 95-570, 105(e))

This law gave the first lady a formal role in the White House as part of the executive branch, but still defined her role as simply assisting the president without detailing any actual powers or responsibilities.

This idea of the first lady being a formal advisor to the president has only been on the political radar for the last few decades as women have had more of a say in government. Recent first ladies have had impressive impacts on society and have kickstarted a number of successful campaigns under their own names, but the first lady has not always been such a visible character in Americans’ lives.

Socio-Political Evolution of the Role

Gary Wekkin (2000) categorizes first ladies into subsets based on their political participation, one of which being “the Shield”, or a first lady who reflects the stereotypical constructs of womanhood while attending to the political needs of her spouse. This is characteristic of many of the nation’s earliest first ladies who were prevented from having any true political power by historical gender roles and the lack of a feminist movement. These

“Shield” first ladies assumed positions as hostesses, a precedent set by the Washingtons who hosted both formal and state dinners. They held these dinners on Tuesdays and Thursdays and were a way for the President to enhance his relationships with Congress, the judiciary, and

American citizens (Mayo, 2000). Perhaps the most famous of White House hostesses was Dolley

Madison, the wife of the fourth president, James Madison. The Madisons had gained previous hosting experience when James served as Thomas Jefferson’s Secretary of State for eight years, and Dolley knew the extent to which these events were venues for political lobbying. Even when the White House was burned down in 1814, she continued to entertain in her temporary residence (Mayo, 2000). Dolley would go as far as to alter the seating arrangements of her

7 husband’s friends and enemies (Watson, 2001) in order to advance his policies and political standing, (Eksterowicz & Watson, 2000) and even placed herself at the head of the table instead of her husband (Rosebush, 1987). She was also able to use her own charisma and friendly energy to mingle with guests and bring opposing viewpoints together, her parties being integral in establishing political networks (Mayo, 2000) even though she herself did not take much interest in politics or her husbands’ policies (Boller, 1988). Many of the nation’s early first ladies, in fact, were influential in terms of social matters and strengthening relationships but tended to stay out of politics (Watson, 1999).

As time goes on, we see Wekkin’s categories of first ladies growing more and more influential politically. The next step up from the shield is “the Consigliere”, or a wife who counsels and advises the President but does not directly impact policy decisions. This is the position that most first ladies prior to Eleanor Roosevelt have assumed and essentially describes first ladies who were more than just a wife to the president but were yet to advocate for their own causes as we have seen modern-era first ladies do. Sarah Polk, for example, attended congressional debates, networked with political insiders, and edited speeches for James K. Polk, who even stated that he took Sarah’s advice over that of his cabinet. Jimmy Carter also called his wife Rosalynn his “most trusted advisor” and claimed that “aside from a few highly secret and sensitive security matters, she knew all that was going on” (Wekkin 2000).

The most politically prominent women in Wekkin’s categorization are the “Co- presidents”, or women who are essentially the President’s policy partner, have their own circle of advisors and are working on independent campaigns and policies than those of the President

(Wekkin, 2000). Edith Roosevelt hired the first social secretary to the first lady to help her with the increasing demands of state occasions (Mayo, 2000), Jackie Kennedy added a press secretary

8 to her office, and Lady Bird Johnson hired a full-time projects manager (Watson, 2000). The office of the first lady has grown to the point that it is comparable with that of any senior advisor to the president. The size of her office staff peaked at 40 people during Jackie Kennedy’s administration, but has since decreased to around 20 (Eksterowicz & Watson, 2000). This enhancement of the position goes hand in hand with the rise of the feminist movement as women have been allowed the opportunity to go further in politics and be seen as equals to men in government (Watson, 2001). Most modern first ladies have had a signature social cause that they have focused on throughout their husbands’ administrations. For Nancy Reagan it was the “Just

Say No” anti-drug campaign, for Barbara Bush it was literacy, and for Lady Bird Johnson it was beautification and conservation (Watson, 2001). Lady Bird Johnson was also the first to travel independently of her husband and did so in order to garner support for him in an area angered by his stance on civil rights. Eleanor Roosevelt was perhaps the earliest first lady to really take on the role of co-president and acted almost like Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president since his administration took place before the vice-president was part of the executive branch. The combination of this lack of a vice president presence and his paralysis allowed Eleanor to travel and speak on his behalf and in turn establish herself across the country as a political figure as opposed to just the president’s wife (O’Connor et. al, 1996).

These recent first ladies have marked the transition from a ceremonial office to a political office with genuine clout in the system. In studies of first lady influence it has been found that 31 first ladies discussed politics with their partner, 26 acted as an advisor, 14 influenced nominations and appointments, and 5 actually influenced public policy (O’Connor et al., 1996).

This clearly shows that the first lady does indeed play an important role in both the personal and professional life of the president, and reinforces the idea that dismissing her as a player in a

9 president’s administration provides us with unanswered questions regarding why a president took the actions that he did. First ladies are now seen as a separate faction of government from the president as opposed to just an advocate for him. She is now an advisor to the president not just because she is his wife, but because she is a political actor in her own right (Borrelli, 2002).

Previous Studies Using Ranks

In order to quantify public perceptions of presidential and first lady success, I am using

C-SPAN or C-SPAN sponsored rankings of presidents and first ladies. Due to the lack of scholarship on first ladies, it is much harder to rank them than presidents. “There are far fewer first lady scholars than presidential scholars, no formal field of study exists on the first lady, few systematic studies have been published on the first ladies, and scholarship on the first ladies is lacking in textbooks, journals, and the curriculum in the fields of political science and history”

(Watson, 1999). She also has no defined role so it is difficult to know on what characteristics or aspects she should be ranked. As far as I am aware, the only scholar to have used rankings to compare presidents and first ladies is Robert Watson, in his book The Presidents’ Wives:

Reassessing the Office of First Lady (2000). In this, he compares the Watson Presidential Scholar

Poll rankings from 1996-1997 to the Siena Research Institute Poll from 1994. However, where

Watson compared overall rankings, I have compared each individual variable that went into these rankings, and therefore have expanded upon his research in order to obtain results that can be analyzed more meaningfully. He also did not expand on the implications of his comparisons, but simply remarked that “this research question should be further examined”. In my research I am taking a qualitative view and exploring case studies in order to track the influence of the first lady on her husband, building off of Watson and other scholars’ work which has only suggested that this influence is present.

By looking at existing literature on the psychological, legal, and socio-economic aspects of first ladyship, it is clear that she has an influence on her husband’s role. She handles the spillover of the president’s stress off duty, she has the legal ability to be a member of the executive office, and her role has evolved over time from a housewife and social planner to a policy partner. With the knowledge that the influence I am looking for does actually exist, my research focuses on actually measuring this influence and trying to find specific aspects of the presidency that it manifests itself in most. Making the connection from seeing an influence to looking at the extent of this influence is something that has been missing in the studies I have read. I am taking Robert Watson’s research a step further by comparing individual variables and explaining these influences on a qualitative level as opposed to simply comparing rankings.

Research Design

In order to tackle my research question, I have used datasets from C-SPAN and the Siena

Research Institute sponsored by C-SPAN to examine rankings of presidents and first ladies, respectively. This allowed me to see quantitatively if a high first lady ranking indicates a high presidential ranking and vice versa. I then examined specific case studies, using anecdotal accounts of the presidents and their first ladies to further explain significant correlations in the quantitative results. Using case studies has allowed me to justify my numerical findings and make the jump from correlation to causation.

The exact presidential rankings I am using are from the 2017 C-SPAN presidential study.

This is the third study that C-SPAN has done, the previous two being in 2000 and 2009. I am using the most recent study in order to have the most updated information, and so that Barack

Obama can be included in the dataset. In order to conduct these studies, C-SPAN reaches out to academic advisors in order to build a database of historians, biographers, and other professional

11 researchers of the presidency. They then sent out a survey asking participants to rank each president on a scale from 1 (“not effective”), to 10 (“very effective”) in ten different categories.

These categories were:

1. Public Persuasion 2. Crisis Leadership 3. Economic Management 4. Moral Authority 5. International Relations 6. Administrative Skills 7. Relations with Congress 8. Vision/Setting an Agenda 9. Pursued Equal Justice for All 10. Performance Within the Context of His Times

The use of categories is intended to create a comprehensive overview of the success of a president and avoid simply ranking a president as a whole on one scale. All the scores in each category were averaged and scaled up to 100, and the ten categories were then added together to form a total score out of 1000. Each category was given equal weighting in the final average (See

Appendix B). Ninety-one people agreed to participate given that their responses would remain confidential. It is not listed how many people in total were invited to participate in the survey. A full list of participants and their institutions can be found at https://www.c- span.org/presidentsurvey2017/?page=participants (Presidential).

The First Lady rankings I am using come from a study completed by the Siena Research

Institute at Siena College, who have been partnering with C-SPAN on their first lady research since 1982. They have done five studies over the course of their partnership: in 1982, 1993,

2003, 2008, and the most recent being in 2014. I am using the 2014 study so that Michelle

Obama can be included in order to be consistent with my presidential dataset. This study is done in a similar way to the presidential study. Participants were historians, political scientists, and

12 other scholars with a focus on first ladies who were chosen through the C-SPAN database. They were asked to rank each first lady from one to five in ten categories, with five being the highest rating. These categories were:

1. Background 2. Value to Country 3. Integrity 4. Leadership 5. White House Steward 6. Own Woman 7. Accomplishments 8. Courage 9. Public Image 10. Value to President

The scores out of five in each category were then scaled up to 100 and averaged. The ten scores out of 100 were added for a total score for each first lady out of 1000, which makes it consistent with the overall scores of the presidents (See Appendix B). Unfortunately, I do not have data on the participants of the Siena Research Institute survey as it is not publicly available as it is on the C-SPAN presidential survey. My thesis advisor has reached out to the contact on their web page in regards to obtaining these details on their methodology, but has yet to hear back from them.

I am using C-SPAN rankings for my research over others because C-SPAN is the primary network for public affairs and is among the most widely used presidential ranking surveys out there. It is also one of only two surveys that ranks the presidents in multiple categories as opposed to overall. In my eyes, a categorical ranking makes scoring the presidents less arbitrary as they are given specific standards on which to rate them by. I also chose C-SPAN because the

Siena College/C-SPAN partnership poll of first ladies is the only widely used first ladies poll, and I wanted to stay relatively consistent in order to control for any spurious variables regarding

13 different methodologies. In his book, Robert Watson used the Watson Presidential Scholar Poll rankings from 1996-1997, and the Siena Research Institute rankings from 1994. I am using an updated Siena College ranking (in which they partnered with S-SPAN), but not the Watson ranking, as this has not been updated as recently as C-SPAN’s, and it is not in any way affiliated with C-SPAN, so the comparisons may not be as consistent as using two C-SPAN data sources.

However, one of the problems with using C-SPAN’s rankings is the lack of explanation of the categories. Both rankings were completed over ten categories which were provided, but neither give us a strict definition of these categories. While this is less problematic with some of the more clear cut ones, it becomes an issue with a few more abstract categories. For example, the first category is simply “background”. After reaching out to Siena Research Institute, we were informed that “background” was defined as “education, family, and experience”. Even with this information, it is hard to know how each of the participants interpreted this definition, meaning that it will be very difficult to explain any statistical significance of correlations in this area. Categories such as “courage” and “integrity” also have this problem, as these terms mean different things to different people, and cannot be quantitatively measured in a standardized way.

Another issue with the categories is knowing whether or not ten areas are sufficient to create a comprehensive view of how successful a president or first lady was. So many aspects go into these positions and boiling it down to ten areas may be leaving out critical information (First

Ladies).

I am conducting both quantitative and qualitative research in order to ensure that the results from my statistical analysis can actually be applied to the real world and are not just random. There would be relatively little weight given to a high correlation between two variables if I could not back up the correlation with real world examples to prove that correlation here does

14 in fact imply causation. It is one thing to claim that certain relationships exist due to numbers, but at the end of the day politics rarely comes down to simple numbers, and explaining why these relationships exist is an integral step in establishing the credibility of my research.

The first step in my methodology was the quantitative research, which entailed running a cross-tabulation of the values in each category for both presidents and first ladies. This cross- tabulation was run through STATA, a statistical software often used in Political Science. A cross-tabulation of my data essentially compares each of the ten variables for presidents with each of the ten variables for first ladies and produces 100 correlation values from -1 to 1. These correspond to the relationship between the two variables in question, with -1 indicating a perfectly inverse relationship, and 1 indicating a perfectly direct relationship. These are the values that I looked at in order to decide which cases to pick out and study qualitatively. I also conducted a side by side comparison of the overall ranking numbers in order to find especially high disparities between rankings of couples, or couples who are ranked similarly. Looking at these numbers or having a program produce a list of numbers, though, does not prove that these values are statistically significant in any way. This is why I then went a step further and conducted qualitative research by using case studies to justify the claims I made through my statistical data.

Hypotheses

As I discovered through my literature review, specifically regarding the evolution of the first lady, the role has changed extensively over the course of its existence. The first lady originated as a hostess, and her professional relationship with the president has evolved from that of a political advocate to a political partner and advisor (Watson, 2001). I believe that her increased political role will cause her to be ranked higher in categories such as “Leadership”,

“Own Woman”, and “Accomplishments”, and therefore higher overall. I also found that spillover in marriages has only been proven in the last fifty to one hundred years, so it is likely that wives of more modern presidents have had more of an opportunity to contribute to their husbands work at home.

Hypothesis 1: More modern first ladies will be ranked higher due to their ability to be seen as

political figures in their time period.

As we have already established, the research on first ladies is not as encompassing as the research on the presidents. Therefore, I hypothesize that some first ladies will be ranked partially on the participants knowledge of her husband. If a participant knows that a certain president is ranked highly, they may be more inclined to believe that their wife must have also been successful, even without significant evidence to back up this assumption.

Hypothesis 2: First ladies reap some of the benefits of their last name, and therefore wives of

highly ranked men will also be highly ranked.

As I have mentioned, part of my statistical analysis entailed using side-by-side comparisons of the presidential and first lady rankings and looking at disparities. I hypothesize that highly ranked presidents will have highly ranked first ladies, and low ranked presidents will have low ranked first ladies. This means that near the top and bottom of the rankings, we should see couples with low spreads between them. While this may stand for the top and bottom ten or so, I think that side by side ranking comparisons of couples may have higher spreads in the middle of the rankings.

Hypothesis 3: The correlations between rankings will be most significant at the top and bottom of

the rankings, and become less clear in the middle.

Part of my methodology involves looking for the most statistically significant correlations between categories. I hypothesize that when correlated with presidential rankings,

16 the most important category of first lady rankings will be “Accomplishments”. I think that the first ladies’ accomplishments are the greatest tell of her overall success because these are the most obvious and measurable aspects of her term, and therefore they will be most telling in the rankings.

Hypothesis 4: The most statistically significant category of the first ladies ranking when

correlated with presidential rankings will be her accomplishments.

While I have no hypothesis relating to it, one area that I will also be exploring is presidents with unconventional marriage statuses. While most presidents have been married for the entirety of their terms, Woodrow Wilson divorced and remarried in office, and John Tyler was widowed and remarried in office. James Buchanan was never married, and five presidents were widowed before their presidency, with some allowing their daughters or nieces to step into the role of first lady in lieu of a wife. It will be interesting to see how these presidents stack up in the rankings, and if second wives are as popular as first wives.

Another commonly used way of evaluating presidential performance is through public opinion polls, most often the Gallup presidential approval polls. I am using rankings instead of public opinion polls because the Gallup presidential approval polls only started in the 1920s, and the first public opinion polls of first ladies - also conducted by Gallup – did not begin until 1934.

Using the Gallup presidential approval polls would only allow me to look at modern presidents and first ladies. However, a large part of my research focuses on the evolution of the relationship between the president and the first lady. My research will also put the administrations into their historical contexts, accounting for the social atmosphere at the time of each first lady, something that can only been done minimally if I was to only look from the 1920s until now (Gallup, Inc.).

One other problem with public opinion polls is their subjectivity. It can be argued that C-

SPAN’s presidential ranking system is subjective, but public opinion polls can be equally as

17 subjective as rankings, as both methods are simply asking people about the presidents or first ladies. At least by using rankings I know I am getting the most educated responses, and it eliminates some contextual biases such as a presidential approval poll participant disapproving simply because the president is not of his or her party, or because of a statement made the day before that clouds his or her view of the overall administration. C-SPAN’s methodology also controls for certain biases by choosing highly educated people of different races, genders, and geographic location in order to make the ranking system as credible as possible. Of the ninety- one participants in the presidential study, seventeen were women. Sixty-eight were professors at institutions spanning twenty-six states from coast to coast, as well as Washington D.C., and

Canada. The remaining twenty-three were historians, lawyers, journalists, and members of significant political institutions such as the First Ladies Library and the White House Historical

Association. Again, the response rate is not listed so it is unclear what the make-up of the intended pool of participants was, but even in the ninety-one responses there is significant diversity. We can infer that this was intended to minimize potential bias.

While these are all valid critiques, I am using the best methods that are available to me, and can still defend my thesis against some of these issues. I see no better way of conducting this research, as any method of quantifying how good a president or first lady was at his or her job is going to come with some level of subjectivity and bias.

Results

As discussed in my research design, the first step of my methodology was running a cross tabulation of all the presidential ranking categories against all the first lady ranking categories.

These findings are presented in Table 1. In the lists of categories, “P” refers to a presidential category, while “FL” refers to a first lady category.

Each number in this table represents the correlation between two variables on a scale from -1 to 1, with -1 being a perfectly inverse correlation, 1 being a perfectly direct correlation, and 0 being no correlation at all. I have then colored the highest correlation in each category green, and the lowest correlation in each category red. This coloring allows me to test my fourth hypothesis, which predicted that the category with the highest correlations would be accomplishments. However, we can see from this cross tabulation that when put against most presidential categories, accomplishments is actually the lowest correlated first lady category in all but three categories. The highest correlation in all but one category is background, with all but one of the correlations in this category being over 0.500.

Table 1: Cross tabulation of ten presidential ranking categories and ten first lady ranking categories

The category of ‘background’ was the only category that had a definition associated with it on the survey. It was defined by the Siena Research Institute as “education, family, and experience”. While I am not sure how participants would have ranked the first ladies on their family, the idea that a first lady with high education and high political experience would have the highest correlations does make sense. This also confirms my first hypothesis that modern first ladies may be ranked higher due to their ability to be seen as political figures. Modern first ladies have had the ability to get a higher education than ones before them, and have also been able to hold political office and have other work experiences before being first lady. The earliest first ladies did not have this ability as women were seen as simply wives and hostesses and were not expected to get an education or work. Table 2 shows the highest and lowest three first ladies in the Background category.

Accomplishments being the lowest correlation, though, definitely comes as a shock. This implies that a first lady achieving great things has little impact on the president and his administration, at least in rankings. This could mean that the first lady’s accomplishments are not related to the administration, or that they are simply overlooked and not taken into consideration.

Table 3 shows the highest and lowest three first ladies in the Accomplishments category.

Table 2: Top and Bottom Three First Ladies in Category: Background

Note that there are only 39 first ladies on the rankings due to a number of presidents either never having being married, or being widowers by the time they served as president.

Table 3: Top and Bottom Three First Ladies in Category: Accomplishments

Note that there are only 39 first ladies on the rankings due to a number of presidents either never having being married, or being widowers by the time they served as president.

The next step of my methodology was simply a side by side comparison of the overall rankings. I have done this is by subtracting the first lady overall rank from her husbands overall rank. This is what I am referring to as a spread. For example, George Washington is ranked as

#2, and Martha Washington is ranked as #9. Their spread, therefore, is -7. A couple would have a positive spread if the first lady is ranked higher than the president. Table 4 shows the ten couples with the highest positive spreads, and table 5 shows the ten couples with the highest negative spreads.

Table 4: Ten largest negative spreads (P rank – FL rank)

Table 5: Ten largest positive spreads (P rank – FL rank)

As we can see, the highest spread in either direction is between Abraham and Mary

Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln is ranked as the highest president, whereas his wife falls at #31 on the first lady rankings. This spread directly refutes my second hypothesis that first ladies can reap some of the benefits of their last name. When Mary Lincoln was ranked, the participants clearly did not associate her with her husband or we would see her much higher in the standings. The highest positive spread is between George W. and Laura Bush. This is a high spread in the opposite direction of the Lincolns – however not quite to the same degree. The fact that there are large spreads both positively and negatively could show that regardless of who a first lady’s husband is, she is not necessarily associated with him when she is assessed. It is also worth noting that the two highest spreads are from very different time periods (with Abraham Lincoln and George W. Bush being inaugurated in 1861 and 2001 respectively). This shows that there is not necessarily a connection between spread and time period.

I have also included a graphical representation of all the spreads between couples in figure 1. The blue dots represent presidential rank, and the orange dots represent first lady rank.

Each black line then connects each couple’s ranks in order to visually see the spread between

them. The x-axis is administration number (George Washington is 1, Barack Obama is 44), and

the y-axis is rank.

Figure 1: Spreads of First Ladies and Presidents (Chronologically)

President and First Lady Ranking Spread

Rank

Administration #

Note that the blue points with no orange counterpart represent presidents who did not have a first lady, and the singular orange point at (18, 22) represents Ulysses S. Grant and his wife, Julia, who are both ranked as 22.

Analysis

I previously laid out my hypotheses and justifications behind them, and will now go

through them each one by one, evaluating whether or not my research upheld them.

Hypothesis 1: More modern first ladies will be ranked higher due to their ability to be seen as

political figures in their time period.

This hypothesis was found to be true. Firstly, when taking a surface level look at the rankings,

we can see a number of highly ranked women in recent times. In Figure 1, we do see a clustering

of higher ranked orange points at the right end of the x-axis, signifying higher ranked later first

ladies. Of course there are outliers, namely Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and Dolley

Madison, but aside from these three women, there are no first ladies ranked in the top 10 until

Eleanor Roosevelt in 1932. In fact, of the top 15 first ladies, ten have been in office after 1932.

The highest correlation category being background also speaks to this hypothesis, as higher background scores are the best indicators of a highly ranked first lady. Since background includes education, and more recent first ladies have had the opportunity to achieve higher education, this category does lean in the favor of recent women. As discovered in my literature review, the social degradation of women was at its highest in the 19th century, which could definitely explain why none of the first ladies in this time period had the opportunity to achieve a prominent status in the administration.

Hypothesis 2: First ladies reap some of the benefits of their last name, and therefore wives of

highly ranked men will also be highly ranked.

This hypothesis implies that there will not be many negative spreads, or spreads in which we see a high ranked president and a low ranked first lady. This is not true, as the highest spread of all is

-30 between the Lincolns. This also works in the other direction, as Laura Bush is ranked 19 places higher than her husband George W. Bush, meaning she did not reap the consequences of her last name There are large spreads in both directions, implying that the first ladies have indeed been ranked based on their individual performance and not by prior knowledge of their husbands. Some of the smallest spreads actually appear in the middle of the rankings, which directly conflicts with my hypothesis. Ulysses and Julia Grant are both ranked 22, meaning they have a spread of 0, Benjamin and Caroline Harrison have a spread of 1, falling at 30 and 29 respectively, and James and Lucretia Garfield also have a spread of 1, falling at 29 and 28 respectively. While my hypothesis is incorrect, this is actually a positive outcome as it shows that the people chosen to participate in these studies are in fact educating themselves on first ladies they may not know as well, and are completing the survey to the best of their ability.

Hypothesis 3: The correlations between rankings will be most significant at the top and bottom of

the rankings, and become less clear in the middle.

This hypothesis implies that spreads between couples will be smallest at the top and bottom of the rankings; essentially meaning that very highly ranked presidents will have highly ranked first ladies, and very low ranked presidents will have very low ranked first ladies. In the middle of the rankings though, this symmetry will not be so apparent. This hypothesis has turned out to be half true. While there is surprisingly little symmetry in the top – the only couple with both people appearing in the top five is Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt – the lowest five are fairly consistent.

In fact, four of the bottom five presidents also have first ladies in the bottom five, with the exception being James Buchanan – a bachelor.

Hypothesis 4: The most statistically significant category of the first ladies ranking when

correlated with presidential rankings will be her accomplishments.

We have already seen that this hypothesis was false, as background was the most statistically significant category, and accomplishments was actually the least significant. I am attributing this to the fact that background is probably the most universal category, in that every first lady can be objectively ranked in it. Only in the last one hundred or so years have first ladies really been able to go far in terms of their own accomplishments, so it does make sense that it is perhaps an unfair measure by which to measure women over the course of three centuries.

As far as non-traditional president/first lady partnerships go, we can only really look into two for the purposes of this study. Four presidents had wives who passed away before they entered office (Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and Chester Arthur), and

James Buchanan was never married. This means that there is no first lady data for these five men, and therefore nothing for me to examine. However, two presidents – Woodrow Wilson and

John Tyler – were both married twice. Woodrow Wilson’s first wife, Ellen, died a year into his first presidential term, and he was remarried a year later to Edith Bolling. She served as first lady

25 for six years. John Tyler’s wife Letitia also died a year into his presidency, and he married Julia

Gardiner two years later, with only one year left to serve as first lady (Swain, 2015).

The Wilson Wives

Despite only being in office for one year, Ellen Wilson is ranked as the 19th first lady – surprisingly high when considering her short tenure. Ellen was born in Savannah, Georgia, the daughter of a Presbyterian pastor – fitting, since she and Woodrow Wilson met in church (Boller,

1988). However, her father developed a mental illness and was sent to a mental institution where he died not long after, and her mother died of childbirth with one of Ellen’s younger siblings.

She was forced at a young age to be an adult and take care of the family, and her strong managerial skills were probably rooted in this experience. She was a smart, but did not have the money to attend college, so instead spent a year studying painting at the Art Students League in

New York City. However, upon her marriage to Woodrow Wilson she gave up this hobby

(Swain, 2015). Even before being first lady, she was an integral figure in the inner workings of

Woodrow Wilson’s life. She handled the family finances, looked after the children, helped proofread his books and articles, and even taught him Greek (Boller, 1988). Her desire to be her own woman while also helping her husband in his pursuits transitioned perfectly into her life as first lady, in which she took the role in her stride.

During her year in office she took great interest in her own projects – her main passion being urban renewal. Ellen connected with the National Civic Federation to clean up Washington

D.C.: tearing down worn out buildings and improving the condition of some of the smaller streets and alleyways (Swain, 2015). She worked with social workers and other organizations to improve conditions for women and African Americans in the city. Ellen Wilson was also the first to earn her own money as first lady, selling her paintings and donating the proceeds to a charity

26 that she founded in memory of her late brother. In addition to these personal ventures, though, she did take interest in her husband’s work. She would help Woodrow with the writing and delivery of speeches, read up on certain issues to help his understanding, and attend press conferences with him (Boller, 1988). Despite only being first lady for one year, Ellen Wilson worked hard on both personal ventures and helping her husband, and definitely had the potential to be ranked much higher had she not succumbed to her sickness.

Edith Wilson, Woodrow Wilson’s second wife, is ranked 14th, just five places higher than

Ellen. It is my view that had I looked at public opinion polls, Edith may be ranked lower due to the taboo at the time of remarrying, especially somebody holding the highest office in the country. Because these women are ranked on a historical basis, however, I think Edith was able to be ranked more fairly. Edith came into office in the midst of World War I and had very little understanding of or interest in politics (Swain, 2015). Although she did not particularly involve herself in her husband’s matters, she did sew clothes for soldiers, help out at soldier’s canteens, and accompany her husband to Europe. However, she was forced to step up to the plate when

Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919. At this time, his doctors advised against resignation as they believed it would hurt the people’s morale, but everybody knew that he could not continue as he had been. Republicans called Edith Wilson a “Presidentress”, and Woodrow the

“First Man” despite the fact that he was mentally still okay, and all decisions were run by him first. He never fully recovered from his stroke, but eventually was able to get around using a wheelchair – still preventing him from being the president that he once was. Edith Wilson played an almost Eleanor Roosevelt-esque role during her last two years as first lady, and it is these last years that outweigh her lack of interest at the beginning of her tenure and allow her to be ranked so highly. Both Ellen and Edith helped Woodrow Wilson immensely in becoming president and

27 fulfilling his presidential duties, respectively, and both have left important legacies on the first ladyship (Boller, 1988).

The Tyler Wives

John Tyler’s two wives were not so successful, but then again, neither was he. While

Woodrow Wilson is ranked 11th, John Tyler is ranked 39th, with his first wife Letitia ranked 37th and his second wife Julia ranked 27th. Both women were only in office for a year, like Ellen

Wilson, but clearly were not as influential. However, it must be noted that John Tyler was president from 1841-1845, and Wilson was president from 1913-1921. The Tyler wives both fall into the century or so long period that I have previously referenced in which very few women were able to rise up and achieve their own goals. Tyler also did not intend on becoming president

– especially not so soon. He was William Henry Harrison’s vice president and was thrown into the ring after Harrison died just a month after his inauguration.

Letitia Tyler was born in Virginia to a family of wealthy planters, and it was she who brought property and influence to her marriage, not John. She was a devout Episcopalian, coming across to those who did not know her as reserved and modest. Letitia Tyler’s lack of success in office though, is not attributed to her small personality, but instead to the fact that she suffered a stroke in 1838 which left her partly paralyzed and unable of completing any of the duties typically left to the first lady (Swain, 2015). Instead her eldest daughter Priscilla took on the role. Letitia rarely left her quarters and acted almost solely as a mother to her children rather than a public figure. This was her priority and was all her body allowed her to do. Even before the stroke, though, she was a quiet woman who tended to keep to herself, so it can be assumed that she would not have been a huge personality in the White House even if she had not been ill

(Boller, 1988). Letitia Tyler died in 1942 after a second stroke. I do consider it unfair to rank a

28 paralyzed woman who came into the position with little hope of succeeding and think that perhaps Priscilla should have been ranked instead.

John Tyler’s second wife Julia, on the other hand, loved the White House and loved being first lady. Julia Gardner was born to a family of great wealth and status, and was home- schooled before attending a fashionable school for women. She had connections to notable governors, senators, and judges, and was described by writer Elizabeth Ellett as “sparkling and attractive” and having a “high and daring spirit” (Boller, 1988). John Tyler met Julia at a White

House dinner, but became closer after an explosion on a US warship killed five people, including

Julia’s father and two members of the President’s cabinet. They were engaged shortly after the funeral. Like Letitia Tyler, Julia was only in office for one year, but in this time became a popular public figure, making friends with reporters to increase her publicity. She made great efforts to be involved in public policy as an advocate for her husband and held many events at the White House for ultimately political goals. She was one of the few early first ladies to take on more of a political role as opposed to sticking to traditional gender roles, so it is no surprise that she gains ten spots on Letitia Tyler. If Julia Tyler had been first lady in an easier time for women to be important political figures, there is a good chance that she would have gone even further and pursued some of her own projects (Swain, 2015).

Overall, it does not seem the first and second wives were treated any differently in the rankings. As I mentioned, I believe that public opinion polls may have shown a different story – in fact it is known that much of the public did not approve of Julia Tyler due to a belief that John

Tyler remarried too soon – but the impartial parties asked to ranked these women clearly put societal prejudices aside.

In order to dive deeper into some of my statistical results, I have conducted further research into Mary Lincoln, Laura Bush, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Jane Pierce. These brief biographical sketches have allowed me to draw further connections and understand why some of these ladies are ranked as such. I have chosen Mary Lincoln and Laura Bush as they have the highest positive and negative spreads between them and their husbands. I have chosen Eleanor

Roosevelt and Jane Pierce because they are the highest and lowest ranked first ladies, respectively.

Mary Lincoln

As I discussed in the results section, the largest spread between couples’ rankings was that of Abraham and Mary Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln is the highest ranked president, while

Mary Lincoln falls in 31st place. Mary Lincoln’s father had been the Governor of Illinois, so she knew her way around the political and social scenes. Despite this state-level experience, the

Lincolns were still seen as outsiders to the White House due to their midwestern upbringings, and they were vilified from the moment they entered. Washington socialites boycotted their inaugural ball and some of the first few functions that they held at their new residence, and Mary

Lincoln was the target of much disdain for even throwing said functions in the lead up to an expensive war. She was called “crude and vulgar, vain and pretentious, frivolous and flighty, stupid and ignorant, wasteful and extravagant, meddlesome and conniving, greedy and corrupt”

(Boller, 1988). In fact, in August of 1861, just four short months after Lincoln’s inauguration, the

Chicago Tribune posted an article in defense of her in order to try and stop the slander. “No lady of the White House,” the article read “has ever been so maltreated by the popular press” (Boller,

1988). Mary Lincoln was smart, sharp, energetic, and eager to help her husband succeed. It seemed as though once the hatred of the new administration settled down, she would be on the

30 track to success as a first lady. However, less than a year later the Lincolns lost their eleven-year- old son Willie to typhoid fever. Willie was the second son that she had lost, and in a similar way to Letitia Tyler, Mary Lincoln was never the same. It was the death of her son that really cements

Mary Lincoln’s spot near the bottom of the rankings, and it is no surprise that she has the lowest score of all first ladies in the category of “Public Image”. She spent days at a time in her bedroom consumed by grief, and all but abandoned her first lady duties (Boller, 1988). To augment the situation even further, the President became consumed by the war, and the relationship between him and Mary became strained.

It is clear that the perhaps surprisingly low ranking of Abraham Lincoln’s wife is due almost entirely to the set of circumstances in which that she found herself while in office. She was doomed by the press before she even started, and the loss of her second son rendered her incapable of performing the duties that she had set out to perform. The story of Mary Lincoln is a true shame, as she was a woman who believed in and supported her husband, and was excited to take the office of first lady and embrace the politics that came with it. Something that has been discovered more recently through looking at her diaries is the extent to which she helped soldiers in the city. She would visit them in hospital, write letters, and bring food, but due to her grief she would never make these visits public or invite the press. It is unknown how much more she did in her private life, and how differently we would view her had she been more conscious of her public image and open to reporters or the press (Swain, 2015).

Laura Bush

The spread between Laura Bush and George W. Bush is the second highest of all the couples and is the highest positive spread (meaning the first lady is ranked higher than the president). George Bush is ranked 33rd, and Laura Bush is ranked 12th. Laura was born in Texas;

31 her father owned a contracting company, and her mother was the bookkeeper. She was an avid reader from a young age, and often visited the library with her mother. She worked as an elementary school teacher and later a librarian after going back to school to earn her master’s degree in library science. Despite living in the same town and even going to the same junior high school as George W. Bush, they were not introduced until years later. After just three months of dating they were married (“Laura Bush”).

During the W. Bush presidency America was put through some of its most trying times in history. 9/11, the Iraq War, and the Great Recession were all obstacles that the Bushes had to face, and George Bush’s handling of some of these issues definitely led to his relatively low rank. However, much of Laura Bush’s praise is reflected in how she handled these tumultuous times, and this is reflected in her highest ranked categories being “Integrity” and “Public Image”.

In the days following 9/11, Laura visited the sites, spoke at schools, and visited grieving families, acting as a safe and calming presence for Americans while her husband was busy figuring out exactly how to respond to the attack. Some even referred to her as “Caretaker in

Chief” (“Laura Bush”).

Once the disaster relief efforts died down, Laura Bush pursued her own projects and interests, most notably finding a voice in the women’s rights movement. She took an intersectional view on feminism, and pushed not only for American women, but also for women in less fortunate countries, particularly in Africa. She wanted to fight for all women to participate fully in their respective societies, wherever that may be. Another one of her most prominent interests was education, and more specifically, reading. No Child Left Behind was the major educational policy of the Bush administration, and in order to combine this with her own interests, Laura started a foundation which gives a million dollars per year to underfunded

32 libraries across the country. She also started the National Book Festival which has remained a persistent legacy of hers to this day (Swain, 2015) and a continuation of the Texas Book Fair that she started as first lady of Texas. It was in this role that her passion for literacy started, and in

1994 she started a literacy campaign in order to emphasize how important reading proficiency is to a child’s education and how they will do at school (“Laura Bush”).

The reason for the large spread between George W. and Laura Bush is twofold. Part of the divide comes from George’s low ranking due to the many disasters he faced in his tenure, and the decisions he made in response. However, we can still not undersell Laura Bush as first lady, and she is ranked highly for a reason. Her ability to bring the country together through some of its most difficult times is admirable, and the causes she fought for are some of the most pressing in our country. Education is something that affects us all, and millions of Americans were, and still are, benefitting from initiatives developed by Laura Bush.

Eleanor Roosevelt

When we think of first ladies, we think of Eleanor Roosevelt. She is one of the most widely known women in history, and it is no surprise that she is ranked 1st of all the first ladies.

In fact, not only is she ranked #1 overall, she is also ranked #1 in six of the ten categories, and #2 in three more. Eleanor Roosevelt was first lady for 12 years and had to essentially step in for her husband at times due to his polio.

Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York to socialites Anna Roosevelt and Elliott

Roosevelt – brother of future president Theodore Roosevelt. However, her mother died of diphtheria when Eleanor was young, with some sources citing her as six years old, and others as eight. She also lost her father to suicide at ten and was forced to move in with her strict

33 grandmother who sent her to Allenswood Academy in London when she was 14. It was here that she learned to think for herself, argue, and become the intelligent woman that she had always had the potential to be (Swain, 2015).

Before she was first lady of the United States, Eleanor was first lady of New York state when Franklin Roosevelt was the governor from 1928-1932. It was in this position that she found her passion for politics and writing by attending legislative meetings and taking classes in typing and shorthand (Boller, 1988). Eleanor was “a party operative. She edited all of the national

Democratic Party publications, as well as their New York State publications, covertly. She was on the board of labor unions. She was on the board of social reform organizations. She taught civics, history, and literature at a girls’ school. She was a major political force in her own right, so much so that, during the [presidential] campaign, all of the major newspapers in the United

States would run full-page stories on her own political career and her own ambitions” (Swain,

2015). She was such an independent political figure, in fact, that upon his presidential victory

Franklin told her that she had to resign from her roles and become a traditional first lady so as to not undercut his policies and agenda. At her husband’s request she did fulfill some of the more traditional roles of first lady that centered around planning and hosting dinners and White House social events. However, she did not let this define her, and still insisted on being heavily involved in her husband’s programs. She also continued lecturing and writing independently for a number of magazine and newspaper columns. She had pursued journalism in the early 1920s and it was a passion that she did not want to let go of in her new role (Boller, 1988). From her tenure as first lady until the end of her life, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote “over eight thousand columns, more than five hundred articles, more than twenty-seven books, [gave] seventy five

34 speeches a year, and [wrote] an average of one hundred fifty letters a day all without a ghostwriter” (Swain, 2015).

Many of her own projects centered around rights for minorities, namely women, African

Americans, and coal miners. She took controversial stances on working women and women travelling unaccompanied, and independently inspected coal mines across the country, as well as the slums of Washington, urging Congress to pass legislation to clean up the city (Swain, 2015).

She was deeply involved in New Deal Policies, and in part some of the more progressive elements are due to her insistence. She followed all of the major New Deal Legislation through the process, and ensured that the end result would entail equal pay for women, work projects for women and minorities, and the use of surplus farm goods to feed the hungry.

When it came to her public image, Eleanor wanted to be an open face to the public. She refused to have Secret Service in the White House because she believed it would impede her ability to have open conversations with the American People. She wanted the people to see the faces behind big government in a time when much of the country had lost faith. As a result of this lack of protection, there were fifteen documented assassination attempts on her life during her twelve years in office. In keeping with her need to be a trusted face for the people, she was much less reliant on her servants in the White House (Swain, 2015). She insisted on operating the elevator by herself, she helped rearrange furniture when they first moved in, and she greeted guests at the door at events instead of entering down the staircase once all the guests had arrived.

She even held her own press conferences – some being exclusively for female reporters (Boller,

1988).

It was during the war, though, that her true devotion to the country showed itself. She was appointed Deputy Director of the Office of Civilian Defense and worked hard to protect all

35 groups of people. She fought for better treatment of African Americans in the military, increased rights for refugees, and visited Japanese-American internment camps. In fact, after Pearl Harbor, it was Eleanor who made the radio announcement alerting the American People to the attack.

Two years later, she embarked on a tour of American troops in the Pacific, and insisted on being taken to Guadalcanal, an island still being heavily bombed at the time (Boller, 1988). While flying over the Pacific in an uninsulated plane, she shattered her eardrum and became deaf in one ear. On the ground, she walked fifty miles of hospital grounds in two days, and had to wear special shoes for the rest of her life due to her arches falling (Swain, 2015). The sacrifices she made for this country were immense both physically and emotionally, and are unmatched by any other first lady. Her devotion continued even after her tenure; just a few weeks after FDR’s death

Eleanor returned to teaching, writing, and lecturing on the causes most important to her, and later served on the executive board of the NAACP and helped found the Americans for Democratic

Action (Boller, 1988). President Truman appointed her to the first American delegation to the

United Nations, where she authored the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (Swain,

2015). Almost twenty years later, President John F. Kennedy appointed her to the advisory board of the Peace Corps, and during the Bay of Pigs crisis, she served on the “Tractors for Freedom” committee; an organization that traded American tractors for freedom of the soldiers captured in

Cuba.

No first lady before her, and no first lady since has been so heavily involved in all aspects of American life for such a long period of her life. Eleanor Roosevelt came from a tragic childhood and rose up to be one of the most powerful women in history. She took care of her paralyzed husband and performed some of his presidential duties all the while being a powerful first lady, fully involved in her own projects and ventures. There is no question as to why she is

36 so highly ranked in so highly category, and I do not foresee any other women coming close to her devotion and passion in the near future.

Jane Pierce

On the contrary, Jane Pierce is the lowest ranked first lady overall, falling at the bottom of the rankings in four of the ten categories, and in the bottom three for the remaining six. Like many of the first ladies I have examined, Jane had a sad childhood. Her father was a

Congregational minister who then became the president of Bowdoin college, but passed away when Jane was just thirteen years old. After this, she lived with her mother who was strict in regards to her getting a good education. She met Franklin Pierce because he was a Bowdoin graduate, and together they had three children (Boller, 1988).

However, the primary reason for Jane Pierce’s minimal contributions to the position is the same as many others from the 1800s – she had just lost a son. Two of the Pierce’s sons had passed away very young, so by the time he was elected President their family entailed just

Franklin, Jane, and their youngest son Benjamin. In January, two months before the inauguration, they took a trip to Boston but their train overturned on the return home. Benjamin was killed in the accident and Jane was stricken with grief (Boller, 1988). She did not attend the inauguration, and when she did move into the White House, she insisted on having mourning bunting surrounding the house (Swain, 2015). This mourning period ended up lasting over two years, with Charles Mason – Chief of the Patent Office – writing that “everything in that mansion seems cold and cheerless” after a visit to the White House (Boller, 1988). Jane spent much of her free time at her desk writing letters to Benjamin in order to express her grief. By her last letters, they were barely legible (Swain, 2015).

If the grief wasn’t enough to keep Jane Pierce from her duties, she was also incredibly frail and sick for the majority of her time as first lady. The Pierce’s hired a married couple to take care of the house and cook meals (Boller, 1988), and Jane’s aunt Abigail Kent took over her official duties. Once the mourning period was over, she did attend more events, such as afternoon teas, and the president’s levees, but she was never particularly passionate about the job. She had not even wanted Franklin to run for president, and he had previously assured her that he would not be elected, so there was no need to worry. The one cause that she did become involved and vocal about was slavery, since Pierce was president just prior to the Civil War. She advised her husband on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves if they would allow slavery (Swain, 2015).

Jane Pierce came to be known as “the shadow in the White House”, and her set of circumstances were a perfect storm. I do not believe that Jane Pierce ever wanted to be first lady, let alone a good first lady, and the death of her son combined with her illness allowed her to step back from the role in a socially acceptable manner. Even without these limiting factors, I am sure she would not have embraced the role with open arms.

Conclusion

Through this study I wanted to explore what people’s expectations of a good first lady entail and what – if any – influence she has on the President. By looking at literature surrounding the topic, as well as my own quantitative and qualitative research, I have confirmed that she does indeed play a significant role in an administration, and even though the correlations between presidents and first ladies are not necessarily clear cut, there is a relationship between the two. I looked at literature in three areas; spousal relationships, legal precedent, and the socio-political evolution of the role of first lady. This showed that in any marriage there is spillover from work

38 to home, and in the White House this spillover has increased over time, with first ladies becoming increasingly political figures as opposed to simply housewives.

My research was the first time that individual categories of presidential and first ladies had been correlated. From this, I discovered that the correlations are highest regarding a first lady’s background and not her accomplishments as I first hypothesized. I also found that while the best presidents and first ladies are not necessarily coupled at the top of the rankings, we do see symmetry at the bottom of the rankings with the lowest ranked presidents generally having the lowest ranked first ladies. My case studies were also very telling, and definitely highlighted some aspects of the highest and lowest first ladies. Many of the lower ranked women were first lady in the 1800s and either suffered from illnesses themselves and therefore were physically unable of completing their duties, or they lost children and were overcome by grief. It is also clear that more recent first ladies such as Laura Bush and even Eleanor Roosevelt lived in societies in which they were able to pursue their own projects as opposed to their earlier counterparts. These projects – especially in the case of Laura Bush – were a big factor in their high rankings. Other important factors that I gleaned from my case studies were willingness to interact with the press, being a good hostess, and taking interest in her husband’s work and current legislation.

In the future, I would like to see where the office of the first lady goes, and if it will continue to expand as it has in the last one hundred or so years. However, our current first lady

Melania Trump is fairly inactive in comparison to her recent counterparts, so it is possible that we have seen a peak in first lady involvement with women such as Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama. There is no question that the past three first ladies have increased the public expectation of the role, as they all invested heavily in their own projects, with Hillary

Clinton even going so far as to run for President. It would also be interesting to consider other externalities that may have impacted the first ladies’ lives and rankings. For example, many of the lowest ranked women are ranked as such because they were grieving over the loss of children. Therefore, the rise of modern medicine could have a strong impact on their ability to perform their duties, and this could explain why recent first ladies have a higher tendency to be ranked well. In a similar vein, the role of motherhood could play a role, and looking at rankings in terms of how many children each first lady had or the stage of life that their children were in could produce interesting results. Lastly, with Hillary Clinton running for President in 2016, and many women having announced presidential bids for the 2020 election, I would be interested to see how a man would perform in the role, and how the public would treat and respond to a First

Gentleman. Even if a woman does not win the 2020 race, I believe it is only a matter of time before the glass ceiling is shattered and we have a female president.

The office of the first lady is an under-researched one, and this study is just a drop in the ocean of what is left to be uncovered. While I do not foresee first ladies ever being as important as presidents in social studies, it is my hope that we will continue to make strides to research these influential women and educate people about what she really does and the contributions that she makes to the administration.

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Appendix A

Full Presidential Ranking Data from C-SPAN

“Presidential Historians Survey 2017.” Total Scores/Overall Rankings | C-SPAN Survey on Presidents 2017, 2017, www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2017/?page=overall.

Appendix B

Full First Lady Ranking Data from Siena Research Institute

“First Ladies Study – Siena College Research Institute.” Siena College Research Institute, scri.siena.edu/first-ladies-study/.